


danse macabre (aka a necromancer's relationship with death)

by JayQueenofHugs (bifangirl)



Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24355300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bifangirl/pseuds/JayQueenofHugs
Summary: Death is... (a part of living, nothing more than a cruel beauty, temporary, a horror, permanent, haunting, an old friend, everywhere, a tool, ever-present, an enemy, out to get him, like a change of clothes)
Relationships: Lucanus Aer'Tea & Erdan
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	danse macabre (aka a necromancer's relationship with death)

**Author's Note:**

> Erdan character study time? (98/99 spoilers)

Erdan is still young when he learns about death for the first time. Elves rarely die of old age, considered to be nigh immortal by everyone else. Of course, it's impossible to avoid death, even in a floating city of high elves. When Erdan first learns about death, he’s very much still a child, and not just by elven standards. He doesn’t fully understand what it means to be gone forever, but his parents tell him that it’s natural, that he shouldn’t have to worry about it until he’s older, so he nods along with what they’re saying and pretends to know what they mean. For Erdan right now, _death is a part of living._

When Erdan goes to study at Gladeholm University, he already knows what he wants to specialize in. Necromancy is abhorrent to nearly everyone else, but he thinks there’s something beautiful in it. Of course, parts of necromancy will always be grotesque, but he finds that he can look past those parts while he learns. Necromancy brings the dead back to life, it can help in protecting and healing, and Erdan refuses to let the undead aspect change his area of study. In his mind, when he makes his decision, _death is nothing more than a cruel beauty._

He makes it his goal to change people’s minds about necromancy but all he seems to be doing is changing their minds about him. It doesn’t even seem like most of the other necromancers share his ideas about the good necromancy can bring. The other students are too interested in the other schools of magic to even glance at necromancy with anything more than contempt. So instead, Erdan ignores the other necromancers and does his own thing with his magic. He impresses the other students, corrects Ilsed’s mistake with the rose and ignores his stares. The other students crowd around him and he brings a dead spider back to life, commanding it to create art through its web. His magic is trivial for him now; he finds it easy to perform what could be considered minor miracles. When you’re a necromancer, _death is temporary._

When Erdan’s parents die, there’s a part of him that refuses to accept it. The other part of him is screaming out at everyone, yelling at someone to do something, to Raise Dead and bring them back. They tell him Raise Dead doesn’t restore body parts and he freezes because something inside of him was warning him, telling him that someone would have done something by now. “Let me see them,” he insists, but something tells him that they’re right, that he doesn’t want to see their bodies. He looks anyway and immediately stumbles away from the sight he finds. At this moment, _death is a horror._

He stands near their casket later, reaching down to open it again. Lucanus stops him but he doesn’t want to listen, doesn’t want to think about them being gone forever. Lucanus tells him he can’t fix them, that no one can fix them, and a quiet voice inside of Erdan tells him that his friend is right. But then Ilsed emerges from the shadows, bringing with him a lich, telling Erdan that his parents could come back. Lucanus yells at Ilsed to leave, pleads with Erdan to stop, but he doesn’t listen, throwing his friend against the wall with Hold Person. He tells Ilsed to try it and he does, bringing them back. Erdan rushes forward and hugs them but the moment doesn’t last long. They attack him and he reacts instinctively, blasting his father away and killing him again. A Fireball from Lucanus kills his mother for a second time and Erdan vows to listen to his friend’s council from then on. For the first time, Erdan realizes that _death is permanent._

After the incident, Erdan struggles with his studies. Necromancy is hard for him after everything that has happened, but he’s dedicated and determined to not give up on everything he’s worked so hard to achieve. He doubts anyone views him as cool anymore but that’s the least of his concerns. He withdraws from everyone except for Lucanus, sits at the back of the classroom as he tries to bring a dead plant back to life. He can tell his friend is trying to help him but even so, it’s still too difficult for him. For the rest of his time at the University, _death is haunting._

At some point, Erdan acquired a cat. He doesn’t know how or when it happened, but this small black cat won’t stop following him around everywhere, and he decides to adopt her. He names her Bubbles and she goes everywhere with him as his familiar. When she dies, he’s heartbroken for just a moment before he tells himself that she’s not gone for good, that he can bring her back. He hesitates for a moment as he remembers the last time he brought someone close to him back to life, but he steels himself and casts the spell. It isn’t a perfect spell, but he brings Bubbles back as a skeletal cat, and wizard and familiar are reunited. When it takes the form of his beloved cat, _d_ _eath is an old friend._

When the armies of the Nine Hells march on the Material Plane, the Legendary Heroes respond with an army of their own. It's a war between Hell and Bahumia full of blood and carnage. The battlefield haunts Erdan, corpses of friend and foe alike littering the ground as the two armies continue to clash. Not to mention his frustration with fighting another necromancer. But he carries on fighting against the armies of Hell, occasionally using the surrounding death to his advantage. As a necromancer, he should be used to death, after all. After a while, he learns to tune out the fact that _death is everywhere._

When he goes undercover with the Grave Robbers, he feels disgust towards his fellow necromancers. Many of them had been old friends and to see them turn against their people cuts deep. He’d spent so long advocating for necromancy, telling people it wasn’t always bad, and yet here was Libella going around and working with Galad Rosell. It pains him to even pretend to side with them, the side of necromancy he’s always tried to avoid. He’s always tried to show the beauty in necromancy, in bringing the dead back to life, but now he has to pretend otherwise and it’s hard for him to do. For the Grave Robbers (and Erdan by extension), _death is a tool._

He takes no pleasure in killing Libella when he first meets the Band of Boobs. No matter what the Grave Robbers had been doing, Libella had been his friend once and it hurt something inside of him to rip her heart out. It takes some time for him to convince the Boobs that he is trustworthy, but he tells them what he knows when they agree to listen. He can sense death when he looks at them, and he knows without a doubt that Ryan the Ram is dead. He can see something else in their eyes too, and he thinks that _death is ever-present._

Then Erdan finds out from the Band of Boobs about Ilsed, that Gladeholm is Akarot’s phylactery. He finds out about the Hollow Gods and listens to the discussions taking place. He attempts to remove Akarot’s essence, tries to save Gladeholm, and the city is teleported to Asmodea. He tries his best to shield the city while everyone else is teleporting away and when Moonshine contacts him and offers to teleport to him, he refuses. He doesn’t want her to die with him. And against all odds, they survive, only for the apocalypse to begin. Starting right now, _death is an enemy._

Not long after the start of the apocalypse, Beverly shows him a sword and it nearly kills him. Somewhere, hidden far behind his clear anger and stress, is fear. Not for himself - he stopped fearing death a long time ago - but for Gladeholm, his city. He’s a leader now and he has to make sure everyone is safe. The second attack on Gladeholm is more personal. The hijack of Gunther’s reincarnation, attacks from the dead, it all feels mocking to the necromancer. It feels like _death is out to get him._

His own death creeps up on him slowly and he curses himself for being so blind, for not seeing it earlier. Of course the sword wouldn't have been that easy to defeat, of course Pestilence would have had something else planned. He isn't mad at Beverly anymore, doesn't blame the young hero, he only feels guilty that he didn't notice sooner. As Pestilence takes over his body, Erdan panics. A bit about his inevitable fate, but mostly about the fate of Gladeholm. He watches as his own body goes down to the All-Caster and kills Quiksus before casting Dominate Person on the entire city. He flinches, a strange experience when you can't control your own body - when you're essentially dead. A desperate idea comes to his head and in a flash, he abandons his body to find Bubbles. It's a stupid plan, it won't solve anything, but there's a possibility it could save even _one person_ and he's not willing to pass on that opportunity. And while the Band of Boobs fight against the wraith, his plan does save one person. As Pestilence casts Maze on Beverly, Erdan, in Bubbles' body, leaps into the way and gets sucked into the spell too. He guides Beverly out and tells the young halfling not to feel guilty, says his death doesn't really bother him. He's a necromancer, _death is like a change of clothes._

**Author's Note:**

> A few things:  
> 1) This is admittedly not my best work, writer's block was kicking my ass while I tried to get this out as fast as I could  
> 2) There are a few scenes/moments that I planned to write that I ended up cutting out. I might add a second chapter to talk about what I cut out if anyone is interested in that (I almost cut the war against Asmodeus before I decided I needed to keep it in, that was the last section I wrote)  
> 3) Shout-out to the wiki for saving me on this  
> 4) I said on Tumblr that I was going to have to listen to Ilsedn't a bunch of times but I actually only ended up listening to it twice ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> 5) For the overlap of people who are also reading my D20 character studies, I'll try to get the last two out as soon as I can  
> 6) This idea popped into my head at 2am about a week ago and wouldn't let me sleep until I wrote it down

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] danse macabre (aka a necromancer's relationship with death)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29225574) by [ofjustimagine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofjustimagine/pseuds/ofjustimagine)




End file.
